


Second Wind

by Ladytalon



Series: The Doctors Light [31]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Humor, Power Play, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 01:28:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3832066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladytalon/pseuds/Ladytalon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'll have to send Tora another case of champagne, and drop a grand piano on top of Zatanna Zatara. Comes after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3813322">A Chip Off The Old Block</a>.  <b>EARTH-14</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Wind

  
  
Kimiyo is still asleep when he wakes up, some sixth sense he never knew he possessed telling him that the youngest member of their family is making a break for it. Arthur stifles a groan as his feet hit the floor, because the room is still cold enough to send an ache through his bones as if they've been newly healed instead of having been mended more than ten years earlier. He limps the first few steps towards the hooks on the closet door where his clothing is hanging, but Arthur doesn't have time to get fully dressed so he pulls a hooded sweatshirt over his head and teleports out to the living room.

"Going somewhere?" he asks mildly, and Imako jerks her hand from the doorknob as if it's been electrified.

His stepdaughter sticks her hands behind her back. "School?" she tries hopefully, sighing when he shakes his head and points towards the kitchen table. "Aw."

"Yeah, ' _aw_ ,'" Arthur repeats back to her. "You don't even have your backpack or your lunch with you to support the lie. If you're going to become a supervillain, you need to learn how to convince people that you're innocent."

Imako sits down at the table and picks at her nails. "I'm not gonna be a supervillain."

Arthur snorts and goes into the kitchen to boil water for coffee, hoping nobody has been scraping their burnt toast into the ground coffee bean container. And by 'nobody' he means Eobard, because the man lives to be the biggest pain in the ass imaginable. "That's a relief, because you're not very good at it."

"Onii- _sama_ ," she complains.

"What? You're not - you got caught, remember?" He waits for her to tell him that he gets caught all the time, too, and makes a 'zipper' motion at her when she opens her mouth to speak. "What happened to you being so sorry that we almost drowned in a river of your tears?"

Imako stares down at the tabletop. "I am sorry, I...well..." He raises his eyebrows at her and sets two mugs down on the counter. "I was gonna try to scrub the paint off before she got up."

Ah, the truth at last. "It'll have to be painted over," Arthur says. " _All_ of the units will have to be painted over."

"But I only wrote on only _one_ of 'em!"

"Them's the breaks, kid. Do the crime, do the time... et cetera, et cetera; I could go on all day. Did you eat yet, or what?"

She says that she has, so Arthur sends her to Tammy's house with a pen and paper with instructions not to return until she has at least three paint swatches. While she's gone, Arthur makes coffee for himself and tea for Kimiyo - then he sits down and wonders where his wife has hidden that magazine... it would be just like her to stash it beneath their mattress, he thinks to himself. Maybe he'll just roll her out of bed and look under there; she has it coming after that trick with her cold feet, after all.

In the end he simply makes her breakfast and takes it in to her, carefully sliding it on her nightstand before leaning down to kiss her awake. "You stink like coffee," his lovely wife gripes, putting her hand on his face and pushing him away.

"Good morning, Sunshine."

"Ugh," she says expressively, hauling the blankets up over her head. "What time is it?"

Arthur sits down beside her and plucks two pieces of bacon from the tray. "Time for me to eat all of your breakfast... you know, one of these days I'm going to bring an airhorn in here to wake you up."

Kimiyo claws her way out of the sheets and slaps his hand away as he reaches for the tray again. "Now I know what to do the very next time I wake up first," she says, pushing her pillow behind her back and picking up her mug of tea. "Did you sleep okay? How are your joints?"

"They're still holding my bones together; that's about all I can say about it," he says, yawning. "I caught Imako trying to sneak out and wash the penis."

Her eyebrows nearly climb right off of her forehead. "Excuse me?"

Arthur frowns. "You know, the penis on the...the _writing_ that says...you know what I mean. I need more sleep."

She pats the mattress beside her, so he crawls over and gets beneath the covers - he'd planned on stealing at least 25% of her food, but he's not that hungry right now. "I'll wake you up when she gets back," Kimiyo says after he finishes mumbling a summary of what's already happened so far. "Maybe I'll get an airhorn to do it with." Arthur feels too tired to muster up the strength to protest, even after his coffee, so he just makes a grunting noise that she can take to mean whatever she'd like. She likes to read through all their junk mail while she eats breakfast and he falls asleep to the sound of the LexMart sales circular's pages being slowly turned. 

When he wakes up this time, it really _is_ because she's gone out and purchased an airhorn. "Jesus _Christ_ ," Arthur yells, flailing upright and promptly sliding right off onto the floor. " _Kimiyo_!"

His amazing, wonderful, and absolutely evil wife has to lean over and brace herself by putting her hands on her knees. Tears are leaking from her eyes and if she's laughing, Arthur can't tell because she's either rendered him permanently deaf or her mirth has become a high-pitched whine that only wild animals can hear. He smacks himself on the side of the head and works his jaw to test the first theory, but Kimiyo's lungs finally decide to let her draw some air and she inhales with an inelegant barking sound. "Your _face_ ," she gasps, and embarks upon the next leg of her journey into hysterics.

Deciding against pitching the wastebasket at her head, Arthur peels off his clothing and tosses that at her instead. She watches, still laughing, as he moves about the room in pursuit of something clean to wear. Since he's due to spend the remaining daytime hours outside watching Imako work, Arthur pulls on a pair of fleece-lined track pants and picks the hoodie back up off of the floor once he's found a long-sleeved shirt to wear beneath it. "It's called 'maturity,' Kim. You might like to try it one day," he says. She just hoots even louder at this bit of hypocrisy.

Imako is eating lunch when Arthur comes in search of the paint swatches - sure enough, Tammy's given her a handful of the things and they all look like the exact same color. "They all look the same," she says through a mouthful of food.

He starts to smile before he remembers that he's supposed to be still angry with her, so Arthur frowns and makes himself a sandwich. Kimiyo glides into the room and puts the canned air in front of his plate, then steals his sandwich when he looks up at her. "Hey," he protests. "Get your own."

"I just did," she says. "Are those all the same color?"

Arthur slides them across the table to her. "Here, you choose one." As soon as she glances at the swatches, he takes the sandwich back and licks the top of it so that she won't try to reclaim what wasn't hers to begin with.

"Charming," Kimiyo declares. "I'm just going to close my eyes and pick, then Imako can find her deposit book before you two go to the hardware store."

Imako's eyes widen. "What do you mean, I can find my deposit book?"

Her mother looks at her. "Surely you didn't think _we_ would pay for the paint to cover up what _you_ wrote?"

Arthur reminds her that crime really doesn't pay when you get caught, widening his eyes at Kimiyo when she gives him a _look_. "I _mean_ , it doesn't pay even when you don't," he amends, but shakes his head when Imako looks at him questioningly and Kimiyo's attention is somewhere else. "You'd better look online for the best outdoor paint for the least amount of money - you only have six more hours of daylight left."

He leaves to find a few blankets and one of the folding deck chairs they'd put away at the end of the summer, then comes back to make more coffee and rummage through the pile of magazines until he finds one he hasn't read yet... and then he sees the corner of a magazine that's been stuffed beneath the cushions of the couch. Arthur glances over at Kimiyo, who still isn't looking at him, and then deftly slides his prize into another magazine. He quickly shoves a well-worn copy of _Scientific American_ in its place and takes his contraband over to the dining room table, slapping it down right beside Kim. "How's your lunch?" he asks, waiting for her to notice that he's found Tora's magazine.

Kimiyo glances over at it and then up at him disinterestedly. "I can't say I'd recommend Leftover Roulette to anyone," she says. "Is that all you're taking to read while she paints? It could be a while, out there."

"Oh, I'm sure there's enough in here to keep me entertained. Lots of new ideas, you know?" Arthur drums his fingers on the magazine, even shifting it so that she can clearly see that he's put another one in there, but gives up when all she does is nod and go back to her food. "You are the most disappointing person on earth."

"Same to you, sweetheart."

He sighs and kisses the top of her head, grabbing a hat on his way to the door. Imako is there waiting for him, clutching a coupon she's printed out. "So I guess I need to go to the bank first, and then the hardware store," she says, looking so forlorn that all he wants to do is laugh at her. Arthur drops off his magazines before taking her to the bank, where he sprawls into one of the lobby chairs and watches how nervous the tellers become when they realize that he's there. Of course this is the very location that granted him the loan on their house and he's decided never to rob it, but nobody _here_ knows that and it's funny how close they come to panicking whenever he drops in. Imako concludes her business and shuffles back over to him, looking so grim that Arthur can almost pity whatever clerk has the misfortune to deal with her in the hardware store.

Pity isn't in the cards for him during their next stop, however, thanks to the patronizing moron working behind the paint counter. Arthur leans on the far end of the counter and thumbs through a few brochures while listening to the employee try to swindle Imako, but she shakes her head at him when he raps his knuckles on the plastic paint trays to get her attention. "I said I wanted flat - I even wrote it on the back of the sample card," she says when he slides over a five-gallon bucket of paint that has the word _premium_ slathered all over it. Arthur folds his arms across his chest and watches with amusement as she insists upon speaking with the manager - after some fast talking and an attitude that she can only have learned from her mother, Imako not only receives an apology but also the paint... free of charge.

"That was impressive," Arthur says to her as they head out of the store. "I'm still not sure how you did that, and I was standing right there watching you do it."

Imako sticks her hands in her jacket pockets. "You just have to pretend like you don't know what you're doing and wait for someone to take advantage of you... and then you get the manager."

"Sounds easy enough," he admits, hefting the paint. "Five gallons won't be enough for all the units, though."

"That's why we're gonna go to another store and try it again," his stepdaughter says. Arthur has to stop mid-stride and put the paint down on the sidewalk so that he doesn't drop it while he's laughing. She waits until he picks it up again, then looks up at him seriously. "Are you gonna tell Mom?"

"Not if you teach me how to do it," Arthur promises. They ‘pinky swear’ on it, and teleport back to drop off the first bucket before finding the next store on her list.

She ends up with two buckets that she doesn't have to pay for and one that she does, thanks to an employee who wasn't born yesterday, and they return to the bank so that Imako can deposit what's left back into her savings account (she bribes him with a candy bar just in case he feels like telling her mother). When they get back to their subdivision there's still enough light for her to paint over her own graffiti, so Arthur sets up his folding chair and settles in to read his purloined literature. There are some interesting notes in the margins and some sort of color-coded system is happening, so he scrolls through his phone's contact list until he finds Guy's number.

Guy answers, sounding so cheerful that Arthur's sure that he's just interrupted the Lantern getting harangued by someone. " _Hey, man - what's up?_ " 

"Kim borrowed the latest _Cosmopolitan_ from Tora and - are you sure this is a good time?" he asks, hearing some strange noises in the background. "Where _are_ you?"

" _Ya wouldn't believe it even if ya saw it... this thing's got ten eyes and twice the tentacles!_ " Grunting noises erupt from the speaker and Arthur holds it further from his ear. " _Hang on a sec, man. Got some ass to kick_." Arthur tells him to take all the time he'd like, and presses the speakerphone button before dropping the phone in his lap and going back to his reading material. He's halfway through a section entitled _Thrill Him Tonight!_ when Guy comes back on the line, only slightly out of breath. " _So, you guys got the new_ Cosmo _? How's that workin' out for you?_ "

Arthur motions for Imako to keep working - she's stopped painting to eavesdrop - and lifts the phone back up to his ear. "It hasn't worked at all, yet - we had to bust a gang of grade school ne'er-do-wells."

 _"So...?_ "

"So what's with the color coding? I'm guessing that was you with the highlighters," Arthur says, flipping the pages until he comes to a section where all three colors share a page. "Yellow, blue, and green." Guy has him read a few lines to refresh his memory, and Arthur tries to paraphrase carefully because Imako has dipped her brush into the paint can at least five times in a row as she tries to listen in. "I've got an audience," he reminds his friend when Guy protests. "That one was in... hang on, did you color-code them with the emotional spectrum in mind? You did, didn't you?"

" _Wellllll..._ "

"There's a whole lotta yellow," Arthur teases. "What's that about?"

Guy laughs. " _Just be glad there's no red._ ”

“Oh, _that’s_ not disturbing at all… so with that in mind, how’s it go? Yellow for what you’re afraid to try or…?”

“ _Hey,_ hey _! I ain’t afraid to try-_ ” Guy audibly chokes back his indignation. “ _You know how it is when a chick don’t wanna try somethin’ weird_.” Arthur hurriedly assures him that he’d misspoken, that of course Guy would be up for anything. “ _Anyhow_ ,” Guy continues, “ _Blue is good when she’s in the right mood, if you know what I mean, and green’ll make her howl like a ghost come back to haunt-_ ” 

There’s the sound of a scuffle, and then Tora’s voice comes on the line. “ _Hello? Arthur?_ ”

Arthur drops his feet to the pavement in surprise. “ _Tora?_ ” Wasn’t Guy just fighting an unnamed multi-tentacled beast? What on earth would Tora be doing there with him? Maybe it was some JLI-holdover thing.

When he mentions this to Tora, she laughs merrily. “ _Oh my goodness, no. Bea stopped by with Gavril – we’re both home_.”

“He _did_ mention tentacles. Ah, what exactly was all the grunting about… if you don’t mind me asking?”

" _Grunting?_ " Tora asks, sounding puzzled. " _Oh...I think that was probably just one of their arm wrestling contests. No double date is complete without one, you know._."

"Of course," Arthur says, glancing over at Imako. 

They make small talk (because neither one of them is about to discuss anything in that magazine), and Arthur promises to bring the kids by the next time they're in town. He invites the other couple over for dinner sometime next week - Tora will coordinate the exact day with Kimiyo after she finds out Guy's schedule - and Arthur ends the call, dropping the phone back into his lap and turning his attention back towards his stepdaughter. "You missed a spot," he says helpfully.

Imako huffs about it and almost knocks over the paint can in her haste to prove that she was 'just waiting for that spot to dry.' Whatever that means, because everything's dry already in the areas that _don't have paint on them yet_. "I'm not tall enough to reach up there," she suddenly announces after glaring at him for a good thirty seconds. "I'm gonna need you to lift me up so I can get it."

" _I'm_ gonna need you to stop going behind my back any time you want to commit a crime," Arthur replies, licking his finger and turning the page. "You seem to have forgotten that _you're_ the one in trouble, and I'm not sitting out here because I like the fresh air. I'm sure there's a ladder around here somewhere." He ignores Imako's further grousing and texts Kimiyo to find out exactly how long germs can survive on paper. She replies that in his case, indefinitely because he has a driver's license. Arthur can't think of anything witty to write in response to this, so he frowns at the screen and threatens divorce with several smiley emoticons before turning the phone off and sitting on it - that way, he can at least pretend he's had the last word. That’ll show her.

His matrimonial door prize half-asses it for another hour, at which point Arthur decides that he’s had enough. “If you don’t start putting some effort into this, I’m going to be escorting you to and from school wearing a different Halloween costume every day,” he says, closing the magazine and standing up to begin folding the blankets. “They’re not going to be _good_ costumes, either. Think of the most embarrassing thing ever and multiply it by ten, and then you will have a decent idea of what you’ll be dealing with in front of your friends.”

“I don’t care,” Imako says stubbornly. 

“You’ll start caring when a giant lobster wearing a tutu shows up during recess tomorrow.” Arthur layers the illusion of this over his own appearance, and watches Imako’s eyes widen in horror. “Maybe a princess crown and some fairy wings,” he muses, adding them on.

“O _kay_ ,” Imako shrieks. “I’ll do it, just don’t come to school like that!” She practically dives towards the paint cans and dips her brush in quickly, then starts actually putting some effort into her work. He finishes cleaning up and locks the chair as well as the blankets inside their unit, then comes back to lean against the fence while he waits for Imako to put her things away. 

One of their neighbors jogs past them and opens her mouth to say something, but thinks better of it and continues on past. “Evening, Phyllis,” Arthur says absently. It’s only when she makes a peculiar whistling gasp (a noise that obviously means she’s trying to say something but the words just won’t come out), that he realizes that he still looks like a Lobster Fairy Princess. 

Imako’s head whips around. “ _Da-aaaaaaaaad!_ ”

“I forgot.”

“You’re so embarrassing, _jeez_!” She crams a paintbrush back in the resalable plastic bag she’d brought with them, and seizes the paint can after trying to look in five different directions at once. “Promise you won’t take me to school looking like that,” Imako complains as they’re heading home. “You need to swear that you won’t.”

Arthur drops the illusion, and sticks the magazines beneath one arm before lifting the other to pull up his hood. “That’s entirely up to you.”

“You still have the wings on,” she reminds him.

When they get back, Kimiyo takes one look at her daughter before sending her upstairs to take a bath. Arthur gets a stern look and a slap in the face when he slides his cold hands under the back of her shirt. “Thank you _so_ much for responding to my texts,” she tells him, swatting him again. “Don’t you dare touch me with anything until it’s warm.”

“I’ve got something that’s still warm,” he leers.

“Gross,” Yasu announces on his way past them.

“The hell did _you_ come from,” Arthur grumbles.

“Don’t swear at the kids.”

“Fine; where the frick-frack-nick-nack-paddywhack-”

Kimiyo rolls her eyes at him and gives him a playful shove towards the kitchen. “Go make me a sandwich. And turn your phone back on.”

“All those in favor of grilled ham and cheese,” Arthur calls out. Yasu shoves his hand in the air and waves it around wildly. “Fine, get in here and help me.”

Dinner is made - and devoured - in record time, then Kim drifts off to get Imako’s clothes laid out for school in the morning while Arthur looks over Yasu’s homework with his stepson. “Everything going okay?” he asks, scanning the pages of algebra problems. “You look like you’re getting the hang of these.”

Yasu glances around to make sure no one else is within earshot. “So, um, remember when you said Misfit might be coming around? Is she still gonna?”

Arthur thinks back to the previous evening, which is mostly lost in the haze of fatigue that’s beginning to set in. “Misfit? Oh, I doubt it…” The boy’s shoulders slump, and he clears his throat. “You really like her?”

“She’s okay,” Yasu says, straightening up and pretending not to care one way or the other.

He picks up the Earth Science worksheet and glances at it. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Cool,” Yasu blurts out, scooping up his books and running off with them. “Thanks, Dad!” he yells as he takes the stairs two at a time.

Kimiyo comes back downstairs and flips off the hall light. “What was all that about?”

He tosses Yasu’s homework on top of the kitchen island where it won’t be forgotten in the morning, and picks his book up off the table before heading into the living room with it. “Have you ever noticed that I’m ‘Dad’ whenever they want something? Funny how that works.”

She raises her eyebrows at him, plopping herself down in one of the armchairs. “What did you wind up promising him this time?”

“He wants to go on a date with Charlie, who owes me a favor. I figure she can take him for pizza or something, who knows.” What he _does_ know is that he’ll likely regret having used up the favor for this… you never can tell when you need something ‘ported by someone who doesn’t need precise coordinates or pre-existing knowledge of a location. “Maybe you could talk to her?” Arthur asks, suddenly seeing a way out. “If _I_ ask, it could come off like I’m trying to act as her pimp.”

Kimiyo laughs. “And you get to keep your ‘favor’ for another day.”

“Did I say that? I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” She looks over at him, shaking her head. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Miko.”

She gives him a fond smile. “You’re welcome.”

"So, what do you wanna do tonight?" he asks innocently, eyeing her over the top of his book.

Kimiyo stretches her arms above her head, causing her sweater to rise with the movement and hover around her navel. It's a very nice navel. "Since you've already read that magazine I hid from you," she says, "We might as well pick something from it."

Arthur drops the book immediately, not even bothering to mark his place. "I _may_ have a few suggestions..."

"Naturally," she says, laughing as she evades his reaching hands. "Shower first."

The prospect of getting naked with her in the shower before the fun even begins is an appealing one and he's gratified to discover that she's obviously feeling the same way, from the way Kimiyo jumps at him the moment the bathroom door closes behind them. Arthur maneuvers her towards the sink as best he can without tripping over something, and drops her down onto the marble countertop while keeping his mouth connected to hers and struggling to pull his pants down at the same time. She laughs at how cold his butt is, giving his ass a slap as he yanks his shirt over his head and accidentally flings it directly into the toilet. 

"Get it out later," Kimiyo advises, pulling off her sweater and unhooking her bra in what looks like the same motion. "Come back here." 

He gladly obeys, moving back into her arms. They're both sufficiently aroused to cause the usual spark of power between them but if he thinks of it as 'the usual,' that certainly doesn't mean that Arthur finds it routine. Despite the fact that it's truly rare for it _not_ to happen, each time their bodies glow with desire for each other it's something wondrous and special. The only real downside to it is that a quickie behind the bushes is simply not possible... because they've tried it, and on more than one occasion. Even inverting the light around them to render their activity invisible doesn't work past climax because someone inevitably becomes too excited and sets something on fire; and despite being roughly twenty years her senior and thus old enough to know better, that someone is usually him.

"You sure you want to do this here, _now_?" he's dumb enough to ask.

Kimiyo runs her nails along his bare shoulders and up into his hair, making him shiver. "You'll last longer the second time," she says and Arthur can't quite figure out if there's an insult hidden in there somewhere, but then she adds to this potentially inflammatory statement in a way that takes the sting - intended or not - out of it. "I want you inside me so badly."

Arthur suggests that she turn on the water and Kimiyo's glow dims slightly as her lips compress into a moue of disappointment. "I'm still going to fuck you before we get in there, don't worry." As always, the vulgarity makes her cheeks turn pink even though Kim has the mouth of a sailor once they _really_ get going. He steps back and waits for her to start bending down to reach for the faucet, then drops to his knees directly behind her and puts his mouth between her legs. 

She goes down with a startled squeak, clutching at the rim of the tub. " _Arthur!_ "

He's been taught never to talk with his mouth full, so this exclamation goes unanswered. Kimiyo's wet enough for him to shove his cock into her immediately but Arthur holds off, intent upon his self-appointed duty. He briefly considers moving his tongue elsewhere and receives a slap in the face when she feels him start to move up, so he figures that she's likely to be more receptive once they've actually been in the shower. Arthur curls his tongue up beneath her clitoris, and the bathtub's edge undergoes another beating as Kimiyo grasps at it wildly. 

Kimiyo pushes back against him, circling her hips and moaning as he licks her. "Oh, god. _Oh_..." when she gets close to demanding that he get on with it, Arthur drags his tongue up her spine and closes his teeth on the nape of her neck while sliding two fingers inside her. She's completely forgotten that she was supposed to turn the water on, so he reaches his other arm across to do it - there's not quite enough room for him to continue finger-fucking her and she actually _hisses_ at him when he pulls his hand away.

Instead of simply reaching beneath her, Arthur lifts his hand to his mouth and sucks on his fingers before leaning in to kiss her. "The water won't stay hot forever," he reminds her, and Kimiyo jerks her head towards the shower impatiently. She waits just long enough for Arthur to pull the shower curtain closed behind them before jumping at him, so Kimiyo ends up pressed against the tiles while he relieves her frustration in one of the best ways ever invented... and that starts him thinking about who first invented it. "Can you imagine what happened the first few times anyone ever fucked? It must've been wild," he says, shifting his grip on her thighs.

"Don't talk; you'll ruin it," Kimiyo complains, drumming her heels against him as if he's a horse who needs to be prompted to break into a trot. "Arthur, come _on_!"

Arthur slides his hands beneath her ass and moves her so that the water hits his back a little lower instead of glancing off his shoulder blade and spraying him in the face. "I can actually see how Creationists believe what they do - I mean, just imagine Eve eating the apple and then saying, 'That thing goes _where_?!?' No wonder they high-tailed it out of that garden." Kimiyo squeezes him warningly and he decides to leave theology for another time if he ever wants to work through those new tips he'd read about earlier. He thrusts into her with renewed purpose and she wraps her arms around his neck tightly, her hips undulating in some sort of new move that she can only have learned in that ridiculous yoga class she's been trying to get him to attend with her. The warmth of the water, combined with their respective light energy, is making things move along a little more quickly than he'd really like but since this was supposed to be a quickie anyway there's no harm done. He _does_ make sure that she comes first because he has a reputation to uphold, and she'll never let him forget it once that lapses. Of course it's already happened at least once or twice, but Arthur's always managed to convince her that she had just been imagining things.

When her fingers begin to dig into his skin and Kimiyo's voice grows breathless and shrill as she urges him on to greater efforts, Arthur consciously pushes as much of his energy into her as she can safely hold. The result is an orgasm so intense for her, it's as if he has his cock buried in a bolt of lightning while he's ankle-deep in water when the energy cascade hits him. While it does have the usual effect of bringing him to climax as well, it's not something he would recommend or even call especially pleasant - as long as no hair falls out in obvious places, Arthur's content to chalk this one up to being an interesting experience that he doesn't care to repeat.

Kimiyo murmurs to him in Japanese and if his brain hadn't just been short-circuited, Arthur would be able to understand it fully. As it is, it's sounding like she has just lovingly called him her curry-battered whale combo platter. To be on the safe side in case she expects a reply, he hazards a reply of "Mmm" and wonders what cardiac arrest actually feels like. Arthur rests his forehead against the tiles, keeping her pinned between his body and the wall, and Kimiyo finally asks to be put down. "I'd love to, dear, but my fingers won't open," he's forced to confess.

"Quit being an ass and let me go," she says, wriggling in his grasp.

"I'm being serious - I literally cannot let you go," Arthur explains, then has a sudden horrifying thought. What if this is one of the situations he's only read about, where a couple has to be taken to the hospital to be separated after sex because of muscles locking up? "No, you can still move so it's not that serious."

She looks at him as if he's finally lost his mind. "The first part of that thought wasn't shared aloud, Artie."

"It's now irrelevant, so don't worry about it," he says as reassuringly as possible. "Do I still have hair? I can't tell."

Kimiyo wriggles harder. "This is so ticklish... um, okay, let me just think about this for a second. There's no current running through you because it's not running through _me_ , plus you can move your neck, so it could be just a really bad muscle cramp that's causing you to seize up like this."

"I will tell you _exactly_ what caused me to seize up like this-"

"Don't you get snotty with me while I still have possession of your penis," Kimiyo informs him in the same tone of voice he's heard her use when one of the garbage collectors tried to leave the recycling bin on the curb because it had gotten switched with one of their neighbors'. He decides not to argue further because she might just start charging him rent. "Are you regaining any feeling in any of your extremities? If I were you, I'd think long and hard before making a sex joke right now."

Arthur tries to get a good look at her face, but she refuses to make it easy for him. "I don't know, maybe?" There _is_ a slight tingling happening in his fingertips, unless it's the same phantom pain that amputees talk about in their memoirs. Kimiyo wiggles some more, and reaches down to scratch the itch that's driving her so crazy before pinching his fingertips hard enough for him to feel it. "Okay, I felt that," he admits before asking her the question that's been on his mind ever since it happened. "We've done this in the shower before...so why is this time any different?"

"It's been a little while, and you're not as young as you used to be..." Kimiyo clears her throat and changes the subject. "Shall we 'port out to the bed to get separated, or get clean in here first?"

He votes for getting the hell out of the shower before the hot water runs out, even if it means getting the bedcovers wet in the process. Arthur's not too sure that he won't teleport only half of his body and leave the rest in the bathtub, but he's feeling vaguely embarrassed and decides to go for it anyway. "You'd better go first."

She takes her own mass safely away and then it's his turn before he falls on his face - surprisingly enough, once he's incorporeal everything seems to sort itself out so Arthur rematerializes and washes himself before the hot water really does leave the pipes. Kimiyo walks back in to make sure he's okay, handing over a towel. "Well, that was weird."

"Yes, it was. Thanks for blaming it on me for being ancient," he says, rolling up the towel and aiming it at her. She scoots aside so that it strikes the corner of the sink with a loud crack. "There's about ten seconds worth of warm water in the taps, if you want it."

She makes a face. "I'll wait."

Arthur wonders which side of the bed she dropped herself on, betting that it's going to be his. "So which thing are we trying first?" he asks, 'reaching' to retrieve his shirt with a ribbon of light which then deposits it into the shower. He towels himself off and goes into the bedroom to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, there's a wife-sized wet spot on his side of the bed. "Dammit, Miko..."

Kimiyo has pulled on one of his old shirts and is sitting on the floor watching him. "You still want to do that, even after what just happened?"

"I may not be... how did you put it? 'as young as I used to be', but I'm not dead yet," he reminds her. "And anyway, you never answered me about how this time was different. You were obviously having the time of your life while I was being electrocuted." Arthur grabs the pajama pants out from under his pillow and yanks them up around his waist, then sits on the edge of the bed to dry his hair. "The last time I caught a blast even remotely like that, you'd just bummed a charge off Vega." She's suspiciously silent, and Arthur drops the towel to check how guilty she looks. 

She looks pretty damned guilty.

"Aw, you gotta be _kidding_ me!"

Kimiyo hunches her shoulders. "Sorry."

Arthur claps both hands to the side of his head, then rubs his face briskly before getting up and going over to sit with her. "I wish you'd've said something."

"I meant to, Artie, I just got a little too...carried away," she says, leaning her head against his chest when he puts his arms around her. "Ever since that business with Shadow Thief, I haven't been feeling quite right and I didn't want to worry you."

He has the feeling that she doesn't want him to murder Carl for her sake, but declines to tell her that he'd strangle the bastard just for breathing in his general direction. "I didn't know it was that serious... I could tell you were _low_ , but not that it was that bad." Arthur leaves off the 'you know I'd share with you' because she knows that he would have, and she also knows that he's not saying anything about it on purpose. Still... "Promise you'll say something next time. You might think I'm all mad science and armed robbery, but I still know how to arrange a fatal accident."

Kimiyo cuddles closer with a short laugh. "I'll keep that in mind, thank you."

"Whatever you need, Miko, I'm here for you." Arthur kisses the top of her head and surreptitiously flexes the fingers of his left hand just to make sure they're still working. So far, so good. "So it must've been recent, because the day before yesterday wasn't anything new. I mean, it was great, but not like tonight," he tacks on hastily. "What, uh, what made you decide to fully recharge today? I'm going to assume it was today."

Her fingers start circling his kneecap. "I was thinking that, if our powers combine whenever we make love... what would happen if we used them _as_ lovemaking?" Kimiyo pulls away slightly at his barely vocalized pfft, turning to look up at his face intently. "I lost you at the Captain Planet reference, didn't I?"

"It is a rather vivid mental image," Arthur admits. "I'm just wondering which tip in that magazine could have possibly given you an idea like that."

She leans against him once more. "The one where we're supposed to be naked-"

"That really narrows it down," he can't help interrupting.

"-and back-to-back," Kimiyo finishes, pinching his leg. 

Personally, he'd thought that one sounded ridiculous because they weren't supposed to be touching at all - a lot of deep breathing and visualization, which he could do any day of the week if he wanted to attend a yoga class. However, her idea of using their _metagenes_ to actually do the deed has definitely caught his interest. "You know I'll try anything at least once," Arthur says.

"Yes, I _do_ know that particular mantra has accounted for much of your sexual history."

"Hey, now, you nearly killed me! You're not allowed to be mean for at least another ten minutes," he points out. 

Kimiyo combs her fingers through her hair and flips it back over a shoulder, where it falls with a wet slap. "I'm operating on Tokyo time. And before you say anything, _yes_ I can use that time zone because it's where I'm from."

"Heaven help it," Arthur mutters. "Let's watch some porn."

She shrugs. "Why not?"

They choose one of those themed movie-type pornos that take place on a pirate ship, but Arthur’s forgotten that whenever they try to watch someone else having sex it becomes more amusing than titillating. He also starts to worry that’s really what _his_ face looks like when he comes and Kimiyo thinks it looks ridiculous, too, but she’s simply never gotten around to saying anything about it. The channel gets turned to a science documentary (which would be fine except this one’s about nebulas) and Arthur considers changing the channel again, but Kimiyo has already started to lean forward. He settles behind her and dries her hair by running his fingers through it slowly, letting the heat channeled through his fingertips essentially flatiron it. 

Kimiyo is soon leaning back against him in a semi-drugged out haze because Arthur knows how much she enjoys having her hair played with and this in combination with her astronomy nerd-umentary practically assures him of success. Sure enough, Kimiyo starts glowing and soon she’s fumbling for the remote control. “So how d’you want to do this?” he murmurs.

“Well, we should really start off by being nude,” Kimiyo sighs back at him, so there’s some awkward shifting as they try to disrobe without actually having to stand up. Of course this is a disaster because he nearly falls off onto the floor. They settle on the bed, back to back with crossed legs, and Kimiyo laughs self-consciously. "This might not even work at all," she says.

Arthur wonders if they're just supposed to sit there because staring at the wall isn't really his idea of a good time - it's certainly not on par with what they'd been doing in the bathroom earlier. "What exactly are we supposed to be doing, again?" he asks, making Kimiyo sigh with annoyance because she's probably trying to concentrate. "Sorry."

"Think of something arousing," his lovely wife growls and despite himself, Arthur finds himself picturing a bear in a bikini... which makes no sense, because Kim isn't wearing clothes at all and the closest animal she _really_ sounds like is a small puppy who's trying to grab someone's pants leg. One of the really small ones. Maybe a Chihuahua. A Chihuahua with long black hair on its head who likes to insult people. " _Arthur_ ," she scolds as if she knows exactly what he's thinking.

" _Sorry_."

Okay, something arousing... she'd definitely be able to tell if he thought of anyone else, but luckily for them both he doesn't need to. The sound that her fingers had made grasping and clawing at the side of the tub is suddenly ringing in his ears - and that _definitely_ fits the bill. Arthur can feel his veins warming with the powered arousal only she has ever been able to pull from him. He can hear her soft gasp, along with a surge of heat against his spine, as she feels it. 

Tendrils of warmth burrow through his shoulder blades and into his solar plexus where they branch off and worm their way into his extremities. Arthur breathes deeply and redirects it back into her, and Kimiyo's gasp is much louder this time. Her hips shift against his, causing another contact high that he pretends does absolutely nothing. "I can keep this up all day," he boasts, brushing a new surge aside and concentrating upon sending a pulse of energy not to her groin but to a point just behind her knees where she's especially sensitive.

"You've tried to keep it up all day before, and we know how well _that_ went," Kimiyo says breathlessly.

He laughs and tries not to squirm when she suddenly sends another jolt to the base of his spine. It's not exactly an erogenous zone of his, but it's where he's had constant stiffness and pain for years - the abrupt relief from the ever-present dull ache is a different sort of pleasure than what he thought they were going for, but he's not complaining. Arthur sighs and the instant he relaxes, the devil woman takes a page out of Guy Gardner's (dog-eared and suspiciously stained) book and uses a light construct that starts doing something that should be illegal. "You're cheating," he gasps, trying to break her hold.

"I'm not using my hands," Kimiyo laughs. "Too much for you, old man?"

Her construct - a perfect, glowing copy of Kimiyo herself - raises its head and smiles at him, flicking its tongue out to touch the head of his cock. The bite of electricity makes him suck on his bottom lip to avoid making any more noise than absolutely necessary, which is patently ridiculous because she knows full well how much he enjoys it. "You're just pulling out the big guns now because you know that you can't win," is all he'll say. When she 'reaches' out in retaliation Arthur is ready for it and turns Kimiyo's own force against her, flipping the main thrust of her power aside and channeling it back through her body. She cries out in surprise and the construct closes its mouth around him as she temporarily loses control of it. He pushes down the urge to simply grasp the base of his aching, twitching cock and masturbate to climax while the light-image of her goads him with small shocks of pain that no sane person should really enjoy.

Arthur groans and Kimiyo takes mercy on him before the pain becomes, well, _painful_. It turns out to be mercy only after a fashion, however, because when her construct reforms it still looks exactly like her and... "Now that _is_ too much," he says unsteadily, staring at what his wife's optic double is doing. He's completely forgotten that he's supposed to be winning because all Arthur can do is sit and watch as the construct spreads its legs and does exactly what he'd been thinking about earlier. "Jesus." Kimiyo certainly has an eye for detail, he thinks feverishly, lifting a hand to rub it over his mouth. When the first tendril of light curls around his erection it barely registers, but he slowly becomes aware that his hands are fisted in the blankets while Kimiyo is stroking him off. Arthur squeezes his eyes shut and when he reopens them, the construct has rolled onto her knees facing away from him. It tosses its glowing hair over a shoulder, light motes floating out and away from the main structure, and reaches beneath itself to resume masturbating. "Not...gonna...win," he reminds her.

"Really?" Kimiyo asks, sounding as smug as ever. The coil wrapped around his dick thickens and starts moving faster. _Too_ fast. He rolls his shoulders and closes his eyes, trying for a deep breath that degrades into an embarrassing wheeze. Arthur's body feels like it's on fire, he's so close... an unwelcome mental image flickers behind his eyelids and he buries the memory back where it belongs quickly enough to prevent it from taking root. The shock of it breaks him from his headlong (so to speak) descent into second place, and Arthur uses his second wind to ensure his victory.

He concentrates all his attention on her secondary erogenous zones – the areas behind her knees, the strip of flesh just beneath the sweet curve of her ass, and the sides of her breasts – and slowly begins the energy transfer. Arthur takes a deep breath and feels Kimiyo mirror him. Her detailed construct becomes blurred, and he weaves a mass of light energy in front of him while remaining connected to the threads that are now causing her to wriggle against his back. The glowing, misshapen ball of light hisses and sparks as Arthur molds it into a translucent sheet. It curves around his body as he sends it arrowing into her, and Kimiyo’s construct simply disappears as the excess energy pushes her into orgasm. Arthur slides both hands between his legs, the fingers of one hand grasping his balls and pulling them away from his body while the other hand strokes his swollen cock firmly, purposefully until he feels the first dizzying wave of intense pleasure begin to wash through him. He lifts his hips, pumping his cock and groaning as the back of Kimiyo’s head connects with his left shoulder blade with a _crack_ that’ll hurt later. Her brightness overwhelms his and he bites the inside of his cheek when he comes, tasting blood as the world goes white.

Arthur is perfectly content to stay right where he is, unmoving, for the rest of his life. He’s not completely sure exactly where he is but he doesn’t remember teleporting anywhere so they’re probably still in the room. Hopefully nothing’s on fire, because that might mean he’d actually have to move. The orgasmic ‘kickback’ has done something to his eyes, because he can’t see anything. It’s probably temporary.

“Mmmm,” Kimiyo murmurs from someplace far away. He feels too lazy to even make an answering sound in her general direction, but a sigh escapes somehow. “Y’okay?”

He supposes he really should try to make an effort to speak. “Hnnh,” is all that comes out. Where _are_ they?

She laughs suddenly. “You have a blanket over your face,” and then he’s staring up at their ceiling. Huh. No scorch marks.

Arthur becomes aware that his head is pillowed on her thigh, and Kimiyo is curled up against his side with her head resting on his stomach. “Why isn’t anything on fire?” he asks lazily, closing his eyes.

“Forcefield,” Kimiyo says, reaching a hand down to tug on his beard. “Zatanna set it up for us.”

His eyes pop back open. “Za _tanna_.”

“Yup.”

“You told Zatanna about what happens when we’re… you _discussed_ …with _Zatanna_?” Arthur lifts his upper body off of the bed to stare at her. “I thought we didn’t do that.”

Kimiyo sits up as well, rolling her eyes at him. “Our homeowner’s insurance has gone through the roof while the resale value has plummeted, Arthur. One of us had to open our mouths about it before the place burns to the ground.”

She has a point, but still. “I was working on something-”

“…that you repurposed into a fucking _death ray_. Don’t you lie to me; I saw the plans.”

What is it with her and death rays?!?! “It was _not_ a death ray! It was an energy transference device.”

“Potato, potato,” she says, pronouncing them exactly the same. “Zee was over the other day, and I mentioned that _I_ was having a difficult time controlling myself after recharging fully. Your participation was never brought up and, if anything, the implication of your…particular skill set… should have her gazing at you with awe the next time you two see each other. So, you’re welcome.” Kimiyo sniffs and throws a pillow at him. “Now move up and make room, because I’m tired.”

He catches the pillow in mid-air, frowning. “No. What exactly did you tell her?”

“You’re wasting perfectly good afterglow quizzing me,” Kimiyo sighs. “As far as Zee is concerned, I set the curtains on fire during sex because you’re so fantastic I just cannot help myself. She doesn’t know that we almost burned the whole place down last week, or that you singed your own eyebrows the week before _that_. While I applaud the fact that you keep our private life _private_ , sometimes it’s necessary to gossip just a little.”

“So was that _all_ the gossip you conducted…?”

“Contrary to what you might think about my friends and colleagues being so blindly accepting of our ongoing relationship, Arthur, they _do_ wonder from time to time about why I’ve married the Hamburglar.”

 _“Hey_.”

“You know what I mean.”

Arthur puts the pillow down and rearranges the covers so that she can crawl beneath them and snuggle up next to him. She _does_ have a point – and he really was going to figure something out shield-wise, but he allowed himself to get distracted when another application of his plans occurred to him. It still doesn’t sit well with him that Kimiyo had to essentially ‘take the blame’ for all the near-misses they’ve had, because it’s his fault too, and they all could’ve been prevented. “We don’t need a damned magic _spell_ ,” he says at last. “I’ll figure something out that we can extend throughout the house.” Maybe even something portable, for those times that Kimiyo feels especially adventurous…

“Of course, dear,” Kimiyo says with a yawn. “Turn off the light, please. The alarm’s been set, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I checked it earlier.” Maybe if he hooked the whatever-it’s-going-to-be up to the power grid, they could even send the extra energy into the lines. “Hey. Hey, Miko.”

“Hmm?”

“You know how, if someone uses solar panels, excess energy is sent back through the power lines and the local company uses it for other customers?”

Kimiyo rolls slightly so that she can look over at him. “Yes, and the power company usually sends… wait. Arthur, no.”

He starts laughing. “Can you imagine though? The Bakers flip on the lights and it’s all because we-”

“Oh my God,” she starts laughing too. “You’d probably go on over there and say, ‘you’re welcome.’”

“And the looks on their faces if they ever figured it out…” They laugh themselves sick over it, and then Arthur finally drags himself out of the bed to turn the lights off. “Seriously, though. They’d pay us for the energy.”

“ _No_ , Arthur.”

“We would get _paid_ for it.”

“We are not getting paid to have sex.”

Arthur sighs and Kimiyo rearranges herself to get more comfortable against him. “I finally figure out a legal way to make money and look what happens,” he says, making her laugh. “Fine. I’m not going to set it up.”

He’s going to set it up.

“Why don’t you set it up in all of the other rooms?” she asks so quickly that he’s sure she’s read his mind. “That way, if you’re still dead set upon making Blůdhaven Power & Utility pay you for being hyperactive, you can just flood the circuits now and again. It’ll still be technically legal, if a bit morally grey.”

“I dunno, I like the idea of-” Arthur cuts himself off before things get out of hand. “I’m supposed to be the one thinking up devious plans, not _you_ ,” he finishes. “I’ll think about it.” His wife prods him in the ribs suspiciously, so he diverts Kimiyo’s attention by planting a long smacking kiss on her temple. She starts giggling wildly and trying to get away, which leads to him chasing her around the room and ends with her barricading herself in the bathroom to finally take her shower.

Arthur grabs a piece of graph paper and starts sketching while he waits for her to come back out. While he does enjoy the idea of making the power company give him money for enjoying his favorite pastime, it’s probably better to honor Kimiyo’s request and keep it out of the bedroom. He pauses for a moment, gazing towards the closed bathroom door with a smirk. It’s not as if he won’t be able to lure her out for an occasional bit of fun in the living room.

When she finishes her shower, Kimiyo comes back out and gives him a look that he’s seen all too often. “This doesn’t mean that you can try to reenact any romance novel scenes with me in the kitchen, so don’t even think about it.”

He throws his pencil across the room. “What the hell else did Zatanna put a spell on when she was here?” What a pain in the fishnet-clad _ass_ -

“I heard that.”

_Dammit._


End file.
